Time To Keep It Simple serves as a record of my life as a traveler, writer, genealogist, photographer, target sports enthusiast, Rotarian, Mason, Jew, PR professional, and many other (mostly positive) things. In addition to this daily blog I am also the man behind the curtain (not named Oz) at gettingyourphil.blogspot.com and I previously blogged at fromgoytooleh.blogspot.com.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Mortgage Monday: Time To Keep It Simple

With
all of the work being done on the house lately things have been rather
complicated. So far, nothing has been as simple as it should be. Everything on
our project list has had a few subsections added to it with the floors and the
exterior doors being prime examples of this ongoing process. However, in the
end, many of these things, all of these complications, are going to give us
what we have been picturing in our minds as our ideal home. Further, many of
the things that have been uncovered and a couple of the future projects have
and will remove some of the complicated aspects of our home.

The
best examples of this are the HVAC overhaul currently underway and the
electrical overhaul that we have on the schedule. The old oil and electric
system required a heck of a lot of copper pipe running across the basement and
up the walls to supply the baseboard heating. The air conditioning, being an
afterthought of the original homeowners, was something that was put in as
inexpensively as possible leaving us with duct work running through bedroom
closets and really not being very efficient. The boiler, oil tank, and all of
the copper pipes are now gone, the duct work has been overhauled, and we have
now simplified the two zone (the heating was originally on four zones) system
running forced air for both heating and cooling.

This
project is nearing completion but the electrical work has yet to be started.
While a few steps have been taken to simplify this (i.e. old whole house fan
has been removed) there is still a lot of work to be done with new matching fixtures
being installed and a lot, and I mean a lot, of outlets and switches that are
going to be removed (with a few simply being moved). This will eliminate the
need for a lot of the wiring that is running throughout the house and will put
things (or leave things) in place that actually make sense (i.e. I don’t need
three separate switches for the kitchen lights).

It
is definitely a process but, as I said before, it will simplify some of the
basic aspects of our house. After all, I don’t like having excess pipes and
wires running through the walls when they don’t need to be there. After that it
should be much easier to maintain. So, we will have to deal with a little more
complication before we can reach a point of simplicity. Well, at least until
the next round of renovations and projects.